Our single-use disposable packaging world is about to change. And this time the change is being fueled by consumer demand. Witness the backlash against plastics with the ubiquitous refillable metal water bottle in everyone’s hands, the ban of single-use plastic bags in New York, California (and elsewhere), and the focus on how our oceans are overflowing — not with fish, but with tons of plastic. Efforts to recycle are also proving too difficult and costly to be effective and don’t address the root cause of the issue. But, aside from single-use packaging being bad for the environment, it simply can’t deliver on truly great and entirely new brand experiences unconstrained by the cost of goods (i.e. fretting over fractions of pennies in material costs).
With consumer acceptance growing, we can now view packaging as durable rather than disposable, and offer solutions that are truly sustainable while delivering usage experiences never before possible. One example is Loop, the zero-waste platform announced at the World Economic Forum, formed by a coalition of major consumer product manufacturers including Procter & Gamble, Nestle, PepsiCo, Unilever, etc. With pilot programs rolling out in New York this past May, the circular shopping platform features products in durable packages that are delivered, consumed, and then returned back to the manufacturer to be cleaned and refilled, and sent out again.